Project #21 Baby blanket

It's a well known fact that I rule my house with an iron fist. When I say 'Jump' my kids say "How high?".

I attribute this to my awesome parenting skills. I am consistent and reliable; there are no 'mixed messages' here.

Anyway, I digress. I finally finished a baby blanket I started for a coworker I no longer even work with, whose daughter may or may not have graduated already.....

It looks pretty good, now if I only knew someone who was having a baby...

"How's the new job?" "I'm glad you asked...."

Six weeks in to the new job and here is a short synopsis of situations involving students on my caseload so far:

Day Two: 
Student described in a meeting as "ruining every class he was in last year" is expelled for bringing 5" knife, being high, long track record of bullying.
Student in wheelchair drives chair off the curb, chair falls over, student bleeds extensively from the head, I call the firefighters/paramedics, student goes to ER.
Student who is undocumented,homeless, schizophrenic, spent the summer in psychiatric ward, shows up unexpectedly at school.

The Next Week:
I meet the the family of one of my students-they are a prominent local family half of whom are in prison having been convicted of murdering a local journalist
6'2" deaf blind student strips completely in the teacher's mail room. Student is swinging at petite aide who is trying to get his clothes back on him. Big 'safety officers' will not help her as they say "we're not trained for that". I help her get him dressed.

Week After That:
The parent of one of my students disrupts a meeting, causes a scene and is banned from campus for 6 days.
Student with Down syndrome is caught sneaking back on to campus having left in the middle of period to buy a grilled cheese sandwich which he hides behind his back. When I question him about it he tells me "It's not a sandwich it's a back warmer". I give him detention. Later on he tells me "I've got some bad news I don't think you're a good fit for me"

Last Week:
Undocumented student is accused of indecent exposure/masturbating in the library. I have to take his statement.
Vision testing proves so intolerable to one of my students he runs away from my group, kicks the wall, runs up and down the hallway yelling "I just want to have fun! Who here just wants to have fun?" , tries to start a revolution but is voted down by the rest of the students.
Student with Down syndrome figures out he can buy me extremely easily with coffee. On Friday morning he brings me a latte and gives me a hug.


Today is Monday but there were no students, it was a training day. Don't worry. I'll have more tales from the dark side soon enough.

Project #20 crocheted baskets....obviously

As part of my ongoing efforts to avoid being featured on Hoarders (Season 6), I've been on the lookout for ways to use up my goddamn never-ending yarn collection.

                           

                                         Yes this is what my yarn stash looks like. Maybe.
So I've been dabbling in the dark arts of crochet lately, and I spent a lot of time recently trying to figure out how I could crochet a basket and then I came across a pattern and I thought... "That was easy".
And then I got a bit carried away.

                                     

 
                                                I even made a basket that was actually a hat:

I have more baskets that I'm working on because....why not right? It doesn't seem to be making a dent on my stash but now at least I have baskets to put my yarn in...

Project #19: Airstream

So Every August Burning Man comes to town. This means a visit from one of my oldest friends in the world Miss Hypnotic Gastric Lapband. She is such a veteran of burning man that she has her own 37' airstream that she bought just for burning man. Such is the dedication this naked hippy fest inspires.

                                 

When she purchased her airstream sight unseen from Craigslist, she thought "What could possibly go wrong?". When she finally got it to California (from Maine) and realized it was full of rat feces and in extremely poor condition, it was too late to do anything about it except bust out the hardcore environmentally unfriendly cleaning products and get on with it.

For many years we told people we were sisters, and if there are any survivors from those years (the 80s in NYC were basically clubs, drugs and AIDS) they are out there still thinking that we are, in fact, sisters. In the spirit of sisterly love, I made new curtains for the airstream. They were pretty fun I have to say. Due to the severe short term memory loss of Miss HGL (she did survive the 80s in NYC after all..) she did NOT take a picture of the finished curtains in her airstream at burning man. I guess we'll have to wait for her to forget to take a picture at next year's burning man....

Project #18: Let them eat cake

Cake is always the answer. When I left my old job in July I made two white chocolate cheesecakes, a red velvet cake and a chocolate cake with whipped cream and berries and brought them to school for all my peeps. Almost seven years at that school; in the beginning some of the staff really dragged me over the coals-they thought I didn't have the chops for the job. After working side by side in the trenches with our special kids through thick and thin, the sublime and the ridiculous, the dangerous and the hilarious we became one big family. I miss them and the crazy work they do. We had no pay raises the whole time I was there, the company nickel and dimed us at every step, the administration didn't back us up when the chips were down...and that's why I'm glad I left. My staff have left and some of my other colleagues too, so it's not the same any more, but I have only fond memories of the people that work there every day with some of the hardest kids to work with. They deserve cake EVERY DAY.

Project #17

It is October already!

Summer was a long time ago , and there are projects from way back then that still need to go up. I started a new job, still in special ed, and it has been overwhelming and exhausting like most new jobs at the beginning. I'm hoping I'm starting to find my stride as I need my energy to post the rest of this year's projects- mark my words I'll get 52 up by the end of the year...

This fabulous creation is me obviously , wearing a cowl I knitted for my sister when we were on Orkney. The wool is from Orkney sheep, and if you smelled it you would know that....

Orkney is a magical place. I hope I'm back there again one day.